I work in IT at Canstar and am approaching my 3rd month. Can hands down say Canstar is a great place to work, from the beers at 4pm on a Friday to the great co workers, monthly massages and occasional morning brekfasts/lunches held. Aside from the great culture, the work amount is spot on - not too much to be stressed, but not too little to be looking to kill time. Also a pro that Canstar are willing to invest into you and your studies, and are happy to help you learn other skills at your time here.

Cons

The office temperature swings alot, I tend to keep a jumper at my desk just in case.

Advice to Management

My direct manager is great, she mentors me and helps me learn the skills I need to do for certain tasks - even though sometimes im completely lost being new she is very helpful and patient. The executives are honestly great leaders in the business, especially coming from a company where if you'd pass an exec you'd try and turn the other way. Great that the execs are so friendly and approachable, will even get a beer in with you on a Friday afternoon

The workload is pretty manageable, never really had to work much past 5pm, and other departments seem similar. There are good groups of people and most people are friendly. Workspaces look nice and the company does admittedly do a good job of employing graduates and giving people a go. Many people have gone from casual employment to full time work in less than six months.

Cross-departmental cohesion is pretty good on large scale projects.

Cons

The cringe here is real. The company is so smug it loses sight of what's real and what's not. HR spends more time attending conferences for a photo op than implementing meaningful policies. Yes Canstar has a ping pong table and upper management would like you to believe it's a forward-thinking company, but the company is still a dinosaur in many ways. For example, there was no paternity leave policy until recently, wages seem uncompetitive in the financial services industry, you need a medical certificate for even one day of sick leave, you must seek approval from CEO for leave 3 weeks or longer, and so on. Staff are made to attend meetings harping on about how great Canstar is, even though I feel a lot of people aren't buying it.

There is a cultural rift, caused by the digital team moving to another building due to the company not predicting the amount of staff growth. Research, sales and data teams are quite professional whereas digital can come across as elitist, amateur, cliquey and high schoolish.

Turnover rate is incredibly high, which I suspect is partly due to the limited career opportunities, where external hires are made, instead of training up and promoting current staff that are deserving. This is demoralising to staff.

Advice to Management

Implement meaningful HR policies, work harder to retain staff - which leak at an incredible rate - beyond just ping pong tables, digital marketing conferences and lavish breakrooms. Fix the cultural rift between digital and the rest of the teams.

Canstar has a positive and personal culture. Nearly all employees are friendly and encouraging. Canstar also has plenty of little perks that make work fun, such as birthday morning teas, celebratory lunches and cheap massages. Canstar also offers a great work-life balance and is usually pretty flexible with alternative working arrangements.

Cons

The remuneration is unimpressive and there is no real possibility of career progression. The company is disorganised and lacks foresight - as an example, employees are currently spread across two neighbouring buildings after we ran out of room in our first building. The small business culture at Canstar is also rapidly declining and there is an air of elitism, particularly among executives.

Advice to Management

Management should realise that while the little perks are nice, they are relatively superficial if employees don't feel respected in other regards, particularly remuneration and promotion opportunity.

Free breakfast, established company and strong branding in the industry will provide the opportunity to further your career, coworkers were pleasant and helpful

Cons

Outdated time consuming processes are a hindrance to progressing work efficiently, uncompensated long working hours, employees are promoted based on tenure, not talent, boys’ club culture, nonexistent HR

Rapid growth means work is interesting and constantly changing. Many great people and a lot of responsibility given quickly to people in all roles

Cons

Salaries are in general well below the market, although HR claim to peg to industry. This impacts the morale of the team and the quality of people in other roles across the company. You get what you pay for. Under resourced teams across the business mean a lot of extra hours worked regularly. Burn out is common and so is the blame game where the obvious reasons for turnover like bullying by sales staff and some managers/execs are buried by HR saying those leaving weren’t up to the job and needed more resilience. Classic toxic culture with a well established boys club headed by the CEO.

Advice to Management

Be honest and upfront about salaries in job ads and interviews to minimise frustration and distrust. Treat people with respect regardless of their gender and ego. Stop valuing the opinion of only those with overinflated egos (team commercial). Replace the sales team with people who care beyond themselves and their money. You have potential to become a great place to work if you recognise the greatness of your people doing great work but not blowimg their own horns.

The people at Canstar are the best part of the workplace. Everyone is so friendly and welcoming. The culture has been a big focus over the last couple of years and there are so many great benefits for employees (free breakfast, fresh fruit, getting your birthday off). The social club is also actually really awesome, with things like a cinema movie night, trivia night and escape rooms. Canstar is very generous when it comes to events and celebrating successes.

The other thing I really like about Canstar is the accessibility of senior leaders. They are very approachable and easy to talk to. The CEO is super down to earth and loves to get to know employees. He knows what's happening in the business and can have a really operational conversation. I'm surprised by some of the older reviews here but I can only comment on my own experience.

Cons

Some of the processes are still quite manual here, but this is starting to change. The company has grown quite quickly, so getting to know everyone is getting a little harder but I hope we don't lose our small company culture feel.

Welcoming culture. Opportunities to take ownership of a team or project in a mid-sized company. Great people in each team make it easy to ask questions and learn.

Cons

Often no recognition of major job roles or new responsibilities taken on - staff are usually promoted without being officially promoted. My job title stayed the same until my final month, although I did three very different positions in my time there. Likewise, my pay increased only slightly in acknowledgement of responsibility that included managing a team of 9 people. I also experienced workplace problems with one team member and was disappointed with how they were (not) disciplined and how we were both just told to play nice.

Advice to Management

Hire more mid level managers so that group executives are not trying to be line manager for three departments.

Canstar have some great people and being small there is a lot you can contribute to add value. Your efforts will be appreciated but not necessarily rewarded. A positive attitude will get you far.

Cons

Believing you can do something doesn't mean you're qualified for the job so there are a number of people in roles they aren't able to do well. Staff turnover is incredibly high and the HR department really is nonexistent which is the main undoing of Canstar. There are also a huge number of executives and junior inexperienced employees for such a tiny company.

Advice to Management

Talk to people and find out what is important to each when deciding what incentives are appropriate. A table tennis table is quite reflective of the lack of awareness of what staff value and the obvious drive to employ cheap young and inexperienced labour who bring nothing more than a can do attitude with no training to help them fulfill this belief in themselves. You need to spend money appropriately to make money (and to retain your top performers who clean up the mess of others til they drop in exhaustion). You need to value staff members for them to value their job.

The drones who follow the company line are full of cringe but I like a lot of my co-workers who know what it's really like and speak freely about Canstar curse and we all have heaps of free time to look for better jobs and follow the race out of this unrewarding and boring place. Yes the air conditioning can be a bit cold but that should be the least of Cansta's concerns.

Cons

Where to start, firstly management writing reviews to try to hide what its so really like to work at this place. Only my second job but from talking to heaps of people this as bad as it gets. Work is manual and place moves so slowly. Systems are historic. Behind the times. Management must seriosly know Canstar is out of touch. The drinking culture can make me and others feel uncomfortable on many occassions. Canstar is uninnovative, dont listen and just do things the same way for years. If you are reading this, get out cause I should of listened to the warning signals.

Advice to Management

Time for a change because you do not leave but all the rest of the workers come and go.